Assange gets bail, but release postponed

LONDON – A British judge ordered Julian Assange released on $316,000 bail Tuesday, but the WikiLeaks founder will remain in custody for at least two more days after Swedish prosecutors challenged that decision.

Assange has spent a week in a U.K. jail following his surrender to British police over a Swedish sex-crimes warrant. He denies any wrongdoing but has refused to voluntarily surrender to Sweden’s request to extradite him for questioning — arguing that he could be questioned from Britain.

Additional Photos

Protesters show support for Julian Assange outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London on Tuesday. The WikiLeaks founder appeared in a London court, seeking to fight his extradition to Sweden in a sex-crimes investigation. The Associated Press

In a day of courtroom drama, the 39-year-old Australian was first told by a judge that he would be freed, then less than two hours later was informed he had at least another 48 hours in custody.

Britain’s High Court will hear the Swedish appeal, but it wasn’t clear exactly when.

“They clearly will not spare any expense to keep Mr. Assange in jail,” his lawyer Mark Stephens told journalists outside the entrance to the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London. “This is really turning into a show trial.”

Lawyer Gemma Lindfield, acting for Sweden, had asked the court to deny Assange bail, arguing Tuesday that the allegations against him were serious, that he had only weak ties to Britain and that he had “the means and ability to abscond.”

Reminding the court that it had already labeled Assange a flight risk, she argued that “nothing has changed since last week to allay the court’s fears in this regard.”

She also rejected attempts to link Assange’s case with the work of WikiLeaks — which last month deeply angered U.S. officials by beginning to publish its trove of 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables.

“This is not a case about WikiLeaks, rather a case about alleged serious offenses against two women,” Lindfield told the court Tuesday.

Celebrity supporters in the court — including socialite Jemima Khan and actress Bianca Jagger — and hundreds of pro-WikiLeaks protesters outside the building cheered at District Judge Howard Riddle’s decision to grant Assange bail.

Under the ruling, Assange must wear an electronic tag, stay at a specific address in southern England, report to police every evening and observe two four-hour curfews each day in addition to putting up the bond.

Lindfield has said Assange is accused of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion by two women for separate incidents last August in Sweden. She said one had accused him of pinning her down and refusing to use a condom. A second woman says Assange had sex with her without a condom while he was a guest at her Stockholm home and she was asleep.

In Sweden, a person who has sex with an unconscious, drunk or sleeping person can be convicted of rape and sentenced to up to six years in prison.

Assange has not been charged in Sweden. His lawyers say the allegations stem from a dispute over “consensual but unprotected sex” and argue that he has offered to make himself available for questioning via video link or in person in the U.K., where Scotland Yard has facilities for foreign prosecutors to quiz people.

Several wealthy supporters — including filmmaker Michael Moore — have put up a total of $380,000 as a guarantee for Assange, his lawyers said.

Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline Club — a restaurant and forum for journalists in London — told the court Tuesday that Assange was misunderstood. Under the terms of his bail, Assange would be ordered to live at Ellingham Hall, Smith’s 10-bedroom country mansion in Suffolk, southeastern England.

Riddle said he had granted Assange bail because — unlike a week ago — he now had a verified address to live at and had cleared up confusion over when he arrived in Britain.

Assange’s next court appearance was set for Jan. 11.

Outside the court, Smith said Assange feared that the Swedish extradition case was an attempt to punish him for WikiLeaks’ publication of the U.S. diplomatic cables and that legal challenges from U.S. authorities were coming in the future.

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